Reddit’s science section – r/science – is one of the site’s default sections (or “subreddits” in the site’s parlance), and is one of the main places on the internet where experts and lay people can come together and chat about science. Its moderators, like the rest of those in charge of subreddits, have to juggle the site community’s strong belief in free speech with the need to prevent arguments, trolling, or anything else that could derail genuine scientific debate.
That’s why they’ve taken the step to ban “climate change deniers” from the subreddit. One of the moderators, chemist Nathan Allen, has written a blog post to explain why the decision was made (I’ve picked out the key paragraphs):
While evolution and vaccines do have their detractors, no topic consistently evokes such rude, uninformed, and outspoken opinions as climate change. Instead of the reasoned and civil conversations that arise in most threads, when it came to climate change the comment sections became a battleground.
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After some time interacting with the regular denier posters, it became clear that they could not or would not improve their demeanor. These problematic users were not the common “internet trolls” looking to have a little fun upsetting people. Such users are practically the norm on reddit. These people were true believers, blind to the fact that their arguments were hopelessly flawed, the result of cherry-picked data and conspiratorial thinking.
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We discovered that the disruptive faction that bombarded climate change posts was actually substantially smaller than it had seemed. Just a small handful of people ran all of the most offensive accounts. What looked like a substantial group of objective skeptics to the outside observer was actually just a few bitter and biased posters with more opinions then [sic] evidence.
Negating the ability of this misguided group to post to the forum quickly resulted in a change in the culture within the comments. Where once there were personal insults and bitter accusations, there is now discussion of the relevant aspects of the research.
I used to work as a barman in a pub with a semi-famous regular who obsessively tried to argue that renewable energy was a scam and nuclear power was a better option, and who would pick drunken arguments with other regulars about it just for the sake of it. It was very weird, and it made uncomfortable, so we barred them. This is a bit like that.
If you want to see an example of a good discussion about climate change, then head to the comments on r/science about this blog post. There’s a lot of discussion about whether this is a genuine pro-science move, whether it’s a suppression of genuine criticism, and what kinds of tone are acceptable when posting contrary opinions.
For example, there’s a small debate over the politicisation of the word “denier”, and how some who are sceptical of climate models feel they are equated with “holocaust deniers” for daring to speak out. It’s stupid, obviously, but the point is it’s a civil debate compared to what you might see elsewhere when it comes to climate change.
The final question that Allen poses, though, is an interesting one – why don’t newspapers ban people like this too? The scientific consensus that climate change is happening, and is driven by humans, is extremely comprehensive and compelling – but media outlets like the BBC tend to offer “balance” by giving fringe sceptics an equal platform.
r/science has roughly four million monthly unique visitors, which makes it roughly twice as popular a website as the New Statesman, and an influential scientific resource. Perhaps some editors could look to reddit’s science moderators for inspiration.
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